hiking machu picchu...(will i stay or will i go?)

the city of machu picchu (with the mountain we climbed to get to wayana picchu next to it)

annette, me, and the gnome after getting to machu picchu...the gnome is a lazy little bastard and was carried up the whole way...

although i have only been traveling for 11 days, one of the things that i have learned is that the potential for death is all around me. it is just waiting for me to step into its gallows. hiking machu picchu was quite an amazing experience (we also hiked wayana picchu, which is the mountain next to it)...but as i climbed up stairs that were death defying to make it to machu picchu, and the even more dangerous wayana picchu, i kept going over in my head all the possible ways i could die...here is a list...although not exhaustive because i don´t want anyone to get the impression that i am completely crazy:

1. rocks off the side of the andes mountains rolling on top of me and crushing my body and therefore my spirit

2. an inability to breathe in such high altitiudes that my lungs would actually collapse

3. missing a step while climbing up (and down) that would plunge me to my death

4. the ghost of an incan person coming to bludgeon me to death for walking upon ancient lands...

as many of you may have inferred, none of those things happened to me...which is not to say that an incan ghost will not come after me...minus a few slips and stumbles, and having to slide down my butt at times to actually come down the mountains, it went well. i made it and that is what is important. i like to think of my self as the tortoise from the tortoise and the hare folktales. seeing machu picchu was more glorious than i could ever have imagined...mostly i was awestruck by the fact that the incas were able to carve an entire city out of a mountain...it is mind-blowing. they didn´t have bulldozers or other luxurious tools like we have today, yet they were able to make this amazing city and build these buildings out of stones (i have not ida what they used for mortar), but the stones fit together perfectly... i can barely lift a book i´m reading due to my laziness, but these people carved a city out of a mountain!!!

another thing that perplexed me was the stairs. now, the icans were little people...but the stairs they built out of rocks were really high. i just don´t get it. i´m 5´7¨ and i was lunging to go up, i assume that the incas were great jumpers.

after our stint in aguas calientes (the town at the base of machu picchu), we spent a night in ollantaytambo, which is one of the cities where the incans defeated the spaniards (alas...this was one of the few times they were to defeat the damn spaniards)...we hiked up to see some of the defense structures, which was pretty fucking amazing. last night we had a really great dinner as a reward for out efforts...and had some amazing chilean wine. we met a guy from los angeles who offered to be our agent if we wanted to publish a book about our travels...i have to say the romantic notion of writing a book or creating a photo essay was quite nice...we would need an angle first...so that is something i will be thinking about over the upcoming months...

well...that is all for now. i can´t wait to hear from all...

hugs, kisses, and more hugs.